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Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

Having deliberated for approximately 3 months more than any normal person would have done, this year I bought my boyfriend tickets to Quidam for Christmas. Quidam is the latest offering from Cirque du Soleil to arrive in London and having been completely blown away by Totem, I figured another show by the Canadian troupe would be a safe bet. Sadly I was wrong. I spent the entire first half of the show waiting for things to get going, desperately nudging my boyfriend and pointing out certain jumps or rolly poleys in a vain attempt to alleviate the general tedium. The second half was a vague improvement but still fell very flat, to the extent that when it finished there was an awkward pause as the audience collectively wondered whether they were actually expected to applaud.

Whilst Totem had been an explosion of colour, costumes and stunts, Quidam was darker and more conceptual (at least it seemed so, although the actual concept alludes me). I was expecting acrobatics and impossible gymnastic feats, when in actual fact the show consisted mostly of disjointed characters running around the stage as filler. When you’re paying the best part of £100 to watch a few balletic leaps and limp juggles, you can’t help feeling like you’ve been stitched up.

On the bright side at least my boyfriend was polite about it, unlike the small girl behind me who afterwards sobbed that she wished her parents had taken her to a real circus. To be honest, I’ve got to agree with her.

Its graduate scheme season, which means that I’m spending an inordinate amount of time watching adverts on Youtube. Whilst this may seem like a phenomenal waste of my life its actually quite entertaining, especially when things like this gem crop up. This is a series of adverts for Egyptian cheese company Panda, made by an agency called Elephant Cairo. Whoever’s idea it was to use the Buddy Holly song was nothing short of a genius

As a recent entrant into the labyrinth of technology that is Apple products, I am understandably fascinated by my new iPhone (I say new, its a battered old thing with a dodgy home button that I got cheap off ebay, but thats just small print). The problem is that I’ve noticed a direct relationship between my new phone and my rapidly disappearing social skills….ALL I CAN TALK ABOUT IS APPS.

Despite my personality taking a direct hit, my quality of A) sleep and B) waking up, has skyrocketed. Why? Because with my iPhone I can now measure it can’t I! In what is probably the most useless iPhone app of all time, I can now tailor the perfect combination of soothing sounds (you can choose from soft cicadas, 2 different types of windchimes, various forms of moving water, rustling leaves, gently chugging trains, various forms of birdsong or even small croaking frogs). Combine this with a bespoke combination of electromagnetic super mega alphabetagamma thingymajig waves to alter the character of your wake up. Blast your head with straight beta waves and you’ll wake up with a rejuvenated mind, pure gamma and you’ll feel more confident, a cheeky combination and you’ll feel super smooooooth. Its pure heaven.

The only slight issue is that sometimes I accidentally choose the running water setting and wake up feeling none of the above and just desperate for the loo. Also I’m not sure of the side effects of repeatedly beaming myself with microwaves every morning, slightly nervous that I could end up like this poor unsuspecting Sim:

Here’s a little slice of shameless blog promo, in fact I’m not ashamed because I don’t even know the author of this particular little gem. What I do know is that I absolutely LOVE what she’s done with the place! Its a contemporary art blog which cuts the crap and just posts pictures of interesting and beautiful works of art.

I just stumbled upon this Detailled Drawing by Remi Andron as I was perusing the bajillion trillion other blogs on here and thought it deserved a wee mention. Its an interesting mixture of the pineapple and the skull, especially as pineapples are meant to be symbols of welcome and skulls of death, so it seems like a bit of an oxymoron, or maybe its welcoming death? Either way its stunning, I love how up close the detail makes the skull look like old wood. The whole thing was done with a Bic pen as well – that’s one hell of a doodle!